Ah, the merry month of May. How much we look forward to it, since it always feels like the time of greatest promise in our gardens. You can almost taste the optimism in the air. The late tulips are in full flight, herbaceous perennials are in fresh green clothes. The…
THE Reverend Dr Jamie Hawkey, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and a Chaplain to HM The King, goes to put the kettle on. Through the windows of his sitting room I can see a magnolia tree in a walled garden, where a narrow lawn occupies a space where the chapel…
On the North Norfolk coast the night sky is vast, devoid of light pollution and rather wonderful. This quiet stretch of coastline has been a familiar destination, even before the keys to my first Fiesta gave us licence to spend summer holidays in a friend’s cottage drinking the paisley-carpeted local…
In the welcoming front room of Captain Ian Farquhar’s Gloucestershire home, a lit wood burner casts a mellow patina of light over a lifetime of memorabilia: paintings, silver foxes, photographs, stud books and poems. They have been accumulated over a family century of breeding and hunting hounds, to which Farquhar…
This month’s test gun, made in Eibar, is a best-quality sidelock over-and-under from the relaunched firm of Arrieta. It is a 12-bore and weighs just under 7lb 3oz, a good weight for a 29in stack-barrelled game gun. ARRIETA SIDELOCK OVER-AND-UNDER First impressions are dominated by the acanthus and gold-accented engraving…
I am slap bang in the middle of the seed-sowing season, that most hectic of times when the ‘windowsill’ propagator is packed with small pots, the staging in the greenhouse is filling up too quickly with seedlings in modules and trays, and I have begun sowing and planting outside in…
The classic Basque cake recipe updated with an Easter twist. Move over hot cross buns and try a new Easter recipe.
I’M PRETTY sure the Elizabethans would have experienced the same bonhomie on welcome when The Pig at Combe was first built, in 1580, as we did on arrival. Walking through the front door into the 16th-century hall, there is no stuffy reception desk but a buzzy bar area, roaring fire,…
Annika Purdey is poised by the grand fireplace in the Long Room at Audley House, the headquarters of James Purdey & Sons in Mayfair. She’s having her photograph taken and looking very much at home. As well she might, for on the walls around her are the portraits of her…
THIS month’s test gun is a 20-bore Browning 525 Game Tradition Light, tipping the scales at just under 6lb 5oz (so, light but not ultralight). It is distinguished by an American walnut stock, 30in barrels with a narrow rib, flush-fitting Invector Plus multichokes and an alloy action with scroll and…
